Jumper
Written in the 1990s by American author Steven Gould, Jumper tells the story of Davy Rice as he escapes his tortured childhood to explore the world via teleportation and find his long lost mother.At seventeen the world is at your feet… especially if you can teleport.David Rice barely remembers his mother. She left his alcoholic father when Davy was very young. She left Davy too, and since then all of William Rice’s abusive anger has been focused on his young teenage son.One evening, as he is about to receive another brutal beating, Davy shuts his eyes and wishes to be safe. When he opens them again, he finds himself in his small town’s library. Slowly, he realises he is very special, he can teleport.Armed with his new power, Davy sets out with new purpose: he will leave his abusive home and find his long lost mother. Davy’s confidence grows as his skills do, but they also draw unwanted attention and soon Davy finds that he too is hunted.
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Steven Gould
JUMPER
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublisher 2008
Copyright © Steven C. Gould 1992
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover art copyright © 2008 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007275991
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2009 ISBN: 9780007283514 Version: 2018-11-01
For James Gould, soldier, craftsman, sailor, father
and Laura J. Mixon, engineer, teacher, writer, wife
Contents
CoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationPart 1: BeginningsChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourPart 2: The Pursuit Of HappinessChapter FiveChapter SixPart 3: AdjustmentsChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NinePart 4: Chinese CurseChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelvePart 5: SearchingChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenPart 6: Playing TagChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenPart 7: Olly, Olly, In Come FreeChapter NineteenChapter TwentyAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorBy Stephen GouldAbout the Publisher
The first time was like this.
I was reading when Dad got home. His voice echoed through the house and I cringed.
“Davy!”
I put the book down and sat up on the bed. “In here, Dad. I’m in my room.”
His footsteps on the hallway’s oak floor got louder and louder. I felt my head hunching between my shoulders; then Dad was at the door and raging.
“I thought I told you to mow the lawn today!” He came into the room and towered over me. “Well! Speak up when I ask you a question!”
“I’m gonna do it, Dad. I was just finishing a book.”
“You’ve been home from school for over two hours! I’m sick and tired of you lying around this house doing nothing!” He leaned close and the whiskey on his breath made my eyes water. I flinched back and he grabbed the back of my neck with fingers like a vise. He shook me. “You’re nothing but a lazy brat. I’m going to beat some industry into you if I have to kill you to do it!”
He pulled me to my feet, still gripping my neck. With his other hand he fumbled for the ornate rodeo buckle on his belt, then snaked the heavy Western strap out of his pants loops.
“No, Dad. I’ll mow the lawn right now. Honest!”
“Shut up,” he said. He pushed me into the wall. I barely got my hands up in time to keep my face from slamming nose-first into the plaster. He switched hands then, pressing me against the wall with his left while he took the belt in his right hand.
I twisted my head slightly, to keep my nose from grinding into the wall, and saw him switch his grip on the belt, so the heavy silver buckle hung on the end, away from his hand.
I yelled. “Not the buckle, Dad! You promised!”
He ground my face into the wall harder. “Shut UP! I didn’t hit you near hard enough the last time.” He extended his arm until he held me against the wall at arm’s length and swung the belt back slowly. Then his arm jerked forward and the belt sung though the air and my body betrayed me, squirming away from the impact and …
I was leaning against bookshelves, my neck free of Dad’s crushing grip, my body still braced to receive a blow. I looked around, gasping, my heart still racing. There was no sign of Dad, but this didn’t surprise me.
I was in the fiction section of the Stanville Public Library and, while I knew it as well as my own room, I didn’t think my father had ever been inside the building.
That was the first time.
The second time was like this.
The truck stop was new and busy, an island of glaring light and hard concrete in the night. I went in the glass doors to the restaurant and took a chair at the counter, near the section with the sign that said, DRIVERS ONLY. The clock on the wall read eleven-thirty. I put the rolled-up bundle of stuff on the floor under my feet and tried to look old.
The middle-aged waitress on the other side of the counter looked skeptical, but she put down a menu and a glass of water, then said, “Coffee?”
